According to media reports, the United States has killed the head of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, Aiman al-Zawahiri, in a drone attack in Afghanistan.
A US official initially said on Monday only that the US carried out an “anti-terrorist operation against a key al-Qaeda target in Afghanistan” over the weekend. He added: “The operation was successful and there were no civilian casualties.”
According to US media such as the news channel CNN and the newspaper “New York Times”, the target was al-Zawahiri. US President Joe Biden wanted to make a television speech about the operation in the evening (7:30 p.m. local time; Tuesday 1:30 a.m. CEST).
Al-Zawahiri had taken over the leadership of al-Qaeda after the death of Osama bin Laden, who was killed by US special forces in Pakistan in 2011.
